Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ar an gcéad dul síos, tréaslaím leis an Teachta Nash as an mBille seo a chur os comhair na Dála. I commend him on bringing forward this Bill. I welcome any legislation that seeks to shut the revolving door between Government and vested interests. We need to keep in mind the scandals of the past year that brought this issue to the fore, including the appointment of a former Minister of State at the Department of Finance to a position with an investment fund lobbying group. This showed very clearly the need for increased regulation of lobbying. That particular appointment breached the cooling-off period set down for such appointments, which sent shock waves through the general public. People were really baffled by how easily it could be done. What is even more shocking, as already mentioned, is that there are no enforcement powers relating to the designated cooling-off period.

Deputy Nash proposes to empower the Standards in Public Office Commission to investigate suspected contraventions of section 22 of the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015. That section prohibits former designated public officials from engaging in lobbying activity for one year after leaving their post. This is what is referred to as a post-employment cooling-off period. SIPO's power to investigate would apply to contraventions of section 22 that occur after the Bill is enacted, even if the former public official left office before that date. This would undoubtedly be an improvement on what is currently in place.

There is scope to go further still, however. For example, it would be best practice to extend the cooling-off period from one to two years. The first Bill I co-sponsored in the Dáil, together with Deputy Doherty, sought to implement 13 of the 22 recommendations that were submitted by SIPO to the Government in May 2019 to extend its investigative and sanctioning powers. I will not go through all of them but will highlight a few. The recommendations included providing the commission with further powers to investigate and report on breaches of the code of conduct. Greater oversight of lobbying would be provided by extending the scope of section 22 of the 2015 Act to make a failure to comply with that section an offence. This would place SIPO on a surer footing when investigating complaints.

We have had a review of these issues but what we really need now is action. This Bill, if not the Bill I brought forward, should be enacted as soon as possible. We need to deal with the issues head on and without delay to restore public confidence. In the interest of accountability and transparency, we need legislation urgently. A revolving door between politics and the lobbying industry is corrosive to democracy and undermines public confidence that our political system is responsive to the needs of the people of this country rather than those of unelected vested interest groups.

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